The Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings as expected on Sunday, but it wasn’t quite as easy as it should have been.
Let’s just get this out of the way right off the bat. Even though he’s a piece of shit Minnesota Viking and a rookie on top of it, that fucking Christian Ponder can play.
He’s a competitor. He’s a leader. He’s pretty much exactly the opposite of Donovan McNabb, Leslie Frazier and the entire Minnesota Vikings organization. Frankly, that creep can roll.
Anyway, the Packers got out of Minnesota with a win and moved to 7-0 just like everyone expected. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the white wash we all hoped for.
The Packers offense was unstoppable, as usual. Aaron Rodgers was asinine, completing 24 of 30 passes, throwing for 335 yards and three touchdowns, but that isn’t news.
Aaron Rodgers is the best goddam quarterback in football. His awesomeness is both expected and appreciated.
The real story of the game is this — the unexpected occurred. Everyone thought the Packers would roll these shitbags… I mean, Vikings, because they were starting a rookie quarterback for the first time. Apparently, Ponder didn’t give a shit what everyone thought.
For the most part, he carved up the Packers’ secondary, throwing for 219 yards and two touchdowns. He delivered clutch throws on third down, he didn’t scramble unnecessarily, and he showed poise in the pocket. Not that we’re fawning over Christian Ponder, but if the Vikings decide to hire a real coach and get some skill-position players on offense other than Adrian Peterson, they might be okay one day.
Speaking of Peterson, he ran for 175 yards on, around and through the Packers’ “vaunted” run defense.
The thing that saved Green Bay on Sunday were two interceptions by Charles Woodson and some decent plays by the Packers other corners, Tramon Williams and Jarrett Bush.
In the end, the Packers pulled out a 33-27 win. It shouldn’t have been that close.
You can say it was a division game and those are always close. You can say the Vikings are literally better with Ponder at the helm. You can say the Packers defense is a goddam sieve.
All of those things would probably be true. It’s also true that a win is win and Green Bay is 7-0.
Excellent Big Lebowski reference.
Credit to Starks at the end of the game for finally running like the Beast he was in the playoffs last year. Also, good news for our next W – douche bag Phillip Rivers and his “amazing offense” didn’t put up a point in the 2nd half against the horrible Jets…
My issue is with Cobb returning kicks. One time he’ll fumble after one of the few big defensive stops next time he’ll take it for 40 yards. I just have no confidence in the guy, two fumbles already this season. Also he takes it out of the end zone too often. let rodgers start on the 20 its all he needs.
I wish i could figure out why the defence looks so lack luster, this same D that a year ago was the toast of the NFL.
Because Dom Capers doesn’t like to run his crazy blitz schemes against rookie QBs, I expected Ponder to have an okay day. What was really disappointing was the poor tackling on Adrian Peterson – that was completely unacceptable.
The post mentioned that the offense was unstoppable – I actually disagree. If the offense was unstoppable the game wouldn’t be close. The reason the game was close was because we couldn’t score touchdowns at the end of the game and instead had to settle for field goals. (Props to Crosby who continues to shine.) I attribute a lot of this to the offensive line, but certainly not all of it. The Vikings pass defense is porous, to say the least. Yet, on many plays, Aaron couldn’t find anywhere to throw the ball; I’m really baffled why this is the case.
Also frustrating was our general inability run the ball, at least until the last drive. This team takes it to another level with the playaction stuff, but if we are consistently getting stuffed on the run, eventually that won’t work any more.
As for Cobb – he had a very frustrating game. On one punt return, he showed what he was capable of (although we already knew that…) but he had a key turnover that led to a TD (when we should have had EXCELLENT field position) and he had a key drop on 3rd down.
I was very impressed by the play of Jarrett Bush though. He had a great game and made an exceptional play on special teams late in the game on a punt by batting the ball away from the endzone as he was falling into it.
Overall, a win is a win. I’ve always thought we would lose to the Chargers, which really wouldn’t be the end of the world. But, they didn’t play too well either on Sunday, so who knows??? At least the Lions lost.
Hopefully with the bye week we can get healthy and be ready to tackle the 2nd half of the season and beyond.
#GoPackGo
Yet, on many plays, Aaron couldn’t find anywhere to throw the ball
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I’m sure he did find some places to throw the ball. But he’s not Favre, he doesn’t take chances. He has 1 interception that wasn’t a tipped pass.
This is a tired story. The Packers win but don’t overwhelm enough to satisfy. Whatever.
The Packers have led by two scores in the 2nd half of every game this season.
Ponder was 13/32. 73 of his 219 yards came on his first pass. He threw 2 INTs and could have thrown 4. Yes, he did make some plays on 3rd down and is way better than McCrap.
Yeah, AP is a beast, but on the last drive, when they had to, the Packer defense shut him down and kept forcing 3rd and longs until finally Ponder couldn’t convert them anymore.
On that last drive, the Vikings didn’t even get to midfield.
Conversely, when the Packers had to run the ball to put the game away, they did.
The Packers aren’t perfect. They aren’t dominate. They are capable of losing any week. But they are also the best, and they haven’t lost. That’s all that matters.
I watch a lot of football on Sundays, and I see a lot of mediocrity out there. The Packers don’t have to be the 1962 Packers. They just have to be better than the other jokers out there.
Division games are always tough. Doesn’t matter what either team’s record is. How many times have we seen a top team lose to a lesser division opponent (or at least make it close)? I wouldn’t read too much into it. But our secondary needs some help. We also have no pass rush. When does Mike Neal come back?
Fuck the chargers…here we come (after the bye) embrace success!!
I saw 38 and 21 being a bit over aggresive in coverage and jumping routes thinking they’d make a big play. The first play of the game was exactly that. Williams undercut the route, but they anticipated that and put on a double move. Great play call.
There were a couple of third downs where Wood went for the pick and missed and they made a completion out of it.
All in all, I think the struggles on defense are attributable to the loss of Cullen Jenkins and/or the injury to Mike Neal (assuming he’s the answer). We need that other guy to stop the double and triple teams CMIII is getting. The secondary has to cover longer.
I’ll start to worry when Neal comes back and things remain the same. In the meantime, a win is a win, no matter how whelming it may be.
All I know is that I was never worried with Rodgers as our QB. Back with he who shall not be named, I would have been nervous as hell.
I think Clay finally stopped taking roids… that’s whats up with out
D…
Smells like purple in here.
Anyone else think Rodgers looked bored out there? It almost seemed like he knew his numbers were really good and he didn’t wanna throw a incomplete pass to fuck them up so he took a sack or dumped it off. Favre did teach him something after all.
The offensive line had trouble with the strong defensive line of the Vikings. Mind you we are minus a left tackle and his replacement is a second year ufa. If you notice Vikings defense hardly rushed more then the front four, allowing 7 men to stay in coverage.
I remember yelling as we got further from our spread sets. If we forced them to play coverage against 4 and 5 wr sets then we would have seen more man and cover 3, allowing us to run our cross routed underneath.
Taking note from McCarthy and Capers past, this could be done purposely to hide schemes for later, more important games. We also suffer in our pass rush, not forcing them to throw short. The reason we get torched for pass yards is because Collins down and quarterbacks pocket time, conversely we have a secondary of ball hawks to counter high pass yds and give our offense the ball.
Newhouse isn’t an udfa, he was drafted late but I agree about all else.
You can complain it shouldn’t have been this close but think about how Cobb’s TO might have killed us in years past.
The Pack can destroy these guys at will. I actually think it was a plan to let them play close and then smash them in the mouth with Starks so they can feel our dominance. It was like a cat with a mouse.
The Vikings suck so bad they don’t even know how to suck correctly. They let themselves think they can play with the champs and get dirt kicked in their face in the final moments right in front of their girlfriends.
Ponder was a surprise though, I wonder what he’s thinking tonight: “Damn, I wish I played for the Packers, I have to wear this purple shit and the real players have man uniforms. I wish I was Matt Flynn, learn from the best in the business and shit.”
Cmon Monty…I said it was going to be close.. but a win is a win is a win.
After grading out exceptionally well in the first three games, BJ Raji has now had two really poor performances in a row. I hope the bye is just what the doctor ordered but that man takes a lot of snaps.
The Vikings played well at home and deserve some praise. The Pack just keep on winning and that’s not easy…especially on the road. I’m not going to gripe too much about this one. The Vikings are a very good 1-6 team and will make some noise later on in the year. Not meaningful noise but still.
This one’s in the books. A little R&R and then moving on to San Diego…
That was the best effort you’ll see out of the Vikings all year.
The Queens just lost their Superbowl. There’s always next year.
Hollywood undead